


Episode 6: Roswell, New Mexico

by DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered



Series: The Canyon's Arms Are All We Know [6]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 00:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18981547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered/pseuds/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered
Summary: Astra's journey continues.  She learns more about the existence of aliens on Earth.





	Episode 6: Roswell, New Mexico

“Now what’ve you got going on back here?”

Astra gestured to the wooden crates, all of which had plant cuttings growing in them. Her time with the migrants had been educational.“Well, you were just discarding those seeds, so I decided to see what would happen if I attempted to cultivate them.”

The backyard of the repair shop was an ideal place for them; they could be placed in the sun for the morning and then the angle of the building was just right to cast a shadow over them during the hot part of the day. She now had a dozen cucumber plants sprouting up in wooden crates.

“I’ll be damned,” Walt muttered, and wiped his sweaty forehead. “Clem!” he called. “Did you see Angie’s cucumber plants?”

Clementine, a heavyset woman with gray hair in a messy bun, emerged from the rear of the garage. “They’ve been there for ages, Walt. How come you’re just seeing them now?”

Astra smiled faintly.

She had left the migrant group not long after her incident with the farmer and the police. Word got around that some crazy white woman was running around with a group of Mexicans and if you spotted her, you should avoid dealing with them. Since she refused to be a hindrance to Elario’s group and their livelihood, she found other ways of living.

Clem and Walt owned a repair shop attached to a filling station, near to one of the locations that migrants often waited to be picked up. Astra had found herself a job with them, sweeping floors and the like. But she was curious, and intelligent, and it was inevitable that sooner or later, she would offer to help Walt with the repairs. So first, he showed her how to change oil. It stank, but she was also fascinated by the workings of these primitive vehicles.

During her lunch breaks, while she ate some jerky or a sandwich, she’d watch over his shoulder as he did tune-ups, changed and rotated tires, replaced catalytic converters, rebuilt transmissions. Eventually, she began borrowing from his substantial library of automotive manuals and absorbing everything that there was to know about the various designations of vehicles. She still had no proper home, so the books were welcome when she spent her nights huddling in a bus station, or lounging on a lumpy mattress on those occasions when she chose to rent a motel room.

One afternoon, a young man came in with a boxy vehicle of the designation “Subaru”, complaining of constant overheating. Walt changed the coolant fluid, patted it on the hood, and encouraged the young man to start it up again and allow it to run for a while. Inevitably, to his frustration, the vehicle began to overheat again.

“It’s probably got a bad head gasket,” Astra had commented.

“How do you know that?” Walt wondered.

“The Subaru vehicles are known for bad head gaskets, which cause overheating of this kind.”

Walt nodded, surprised and impressed. “You’re absolutely right about that.”

So he showed her where they ordered the parts from, and how to order them, and then allowed her to assist him in changing it.

Clem and Walt paid in cash, and didn’t ask questions. They were kind enough, and sometimes Clem brought her an extra piece of pecan pie from home. As she learned more about car repair, she discovered that they weren’t always completely honest about the diagnosis of the troubles or what it would cost. But for the most part, they were decent enough.

Astra kept her distance, continuing to rely on her “down on her luck veteran” story and avoiding questions as much as she could. She simply showed up each day, did what was asked of her, and got paid. They seemed to appreciate her punctuality.

One night, not long after she had helped Walt change the head gasket, Clementine pulled her Dodge Rambler up next to the bus shelter where Astra was seated. “Angie? Can I give you a lift home?”

Astra demurred. She wasn’t planning to get on the bus, but Clementine didn’t need to know that. “Thank you, Clem. I’m alright here.”

But Clem wasn’t easily dissuaded. “Come on, honey. Let me give you a ride. They’re talking about storms.”She gestured to the horizon, where some forbidding clouds loomed over the painted mountains. “Where do you live, anyway?”

Astra uncomfortably got into the vehicle. She knew the name of a motel a little further down the highway. “Can you just drop me at the Motel Six in Picacho?”

Clem’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean to tell me you live at the Motel Six?”

Astra nodded awkwardly. “It’s a roof and a bed. I don’t need more than that.” The truth was, she didn’t like to sleep too heavily anyway. Dreams of the medical procedures that they had done on her at Fort Rozz were inevitable and they were never good. She never knew what they did to her, she just knew that they were unnecessary and painful.

Clem shook her head. “That’s no good. We’ve got to help you find some proper digs.”

She steered toward the highway and headed in the direction of the motel. “Now listen, Angie, we don’t ask questions, and we pay you off the books, which works out fine for us, and I don’t want to know if you’re an escaped convict or something, but it seems to me that you have a real talent for automotive repair, and maybe me and Walt could help you find something a little more humane than just…” She gestured vaguely.

Astra flushed a little. “I don’t want charity.”

Clementine clucked her tongue. “Don’t be so proud.”

“I don’t have much left except my pride,” Astra answered.

Clem considered her for a moment.

But Astra had started to get an idea. “I have a question, though. You and Walt get many vehicles come through the shop that are considered garbage–”

“Junkers,” Clem corrected her.

“Junkers, yes. Maybe I could purchase a junker from you. I could get it into to useable condition myself, I think.”

Clem thought about this. “I’m not sure I like the idea of you living out of a truck much better than the motel.”

Astra thought. “That pickup truck that’s in back,” she said. “The green Ford with with the dented flatbed. Is that intended for junk?”

“I think Walt’s gonna sell it for parts.”

“How much would you get for it that way?”

Clem shrugged. “Not too much. About fifteen hundred dollars, I suppose. It’s older than dirt and probably not much on it is still good.”

 

 

*******

 

Astra had accumulated a fair amount of cash in her months here. She was careful, exceedingly careful with how she ate and what she purchased, only opting for motel rooms if the weather was especially bad.She had a roll of bills in the inner part of her jacket that amounted to something like three thousand dollars.

So she bought the junker from Walt. And after work hours, she worked on it. These were simple machines, and she was able to hone her skills quickly. Her job became equal parts sweeping and the like, but it also began to include some time assisting with repairs. 

One evening, as she was attempting to diagnose a problem with the transmission that she had installed into the truck, Clementine came back to her. “Angie,” she said carefully, “I don’t wanna pry or anything, but do you… I mean, we never asked, but… you never did show us a driver’s license.”

Astra frowned.

“Can you drive?”

Astra hadn’t thought about that. But all these humans did it, how difficult could it be. “I am a pilot, you know, and have flown extremely advanced, complex aircrafts.”

“I’m sure you have, honey,” Clem assured her, “but you still need to learn how to drive this if it’s gonna do you any good.”

So Clementine badgered her husband into giving Astra driving lessons.At first it was mostly driving around in circles in the parking lot of the filling station while Walt cringed and sometimes covered his eyes. Eventually, she graduated to the highway, which was mostly straight lines. Astra hated it, but eventually, her mastery improved.And finally, the pickup truck was ready to be driven on that same road.

She had become a fairly good driver. She never did get a license, though Clem and Walt advised her to do so.

 

 

*******

 

 

Clem sent Astra to pick up sandwiches sometimes. Walt sent Astra to pick up tires or parts. She discovered that owning the truck was freedom. She could see some more of Earth, if she wanted, than this dusty little corner of it.

She slept in the flatbed of the truck on nice evenings, and curled up in the cab on colder ones. She decided that she was ready to start actively looking for a small structure like the ones that she saw occasionally; large enough to house a small bed and facilities, and even a kitchen, but moveable on wheels.

Walt sent her to the junker’s one day to retrieve an engine from him for a 1997 Honda Civic.While she was waiting for him to bring it out, she spotted it: a run down trailer.

While Fred, the junker, was loading the engine into the flatbed of her truck, she asked him, “Is that going to be destroyed?”

He glanced at it. “Yeah, think so. Floor’s pretty much gutted, exterior needs work. Needs a new window. Two broken axles. Fridge stripped out.”

“Can I have it?”

He looked at her as if she were high on methamphetamines. “It’s way more trouble than it’s worth, Angie.”

She shook her head. “Not for me.”

He shrugged. “It’s your funeral. It’ll be a hundred if you want to pay to have Donny tow it over to Walt’s for you.”

 

 

*****

 

 

Astra’s cucumbers continued to thrive.Soon she was winding them around stakes.And then there were tomatoes, too. Clem and Walt couldn’t believe how productive they were. Soon they would be taking home fresh vegetables nearly every day.

She scrounged for spare lumber, scrap metal, linoleum. Clementine used their internet to locate someone in Roswell who was giving away a small refrigerator for free. Astra got in her truck and drove there herself.

She had heard of Roswell, that it was supposed to be the site of an alien landing several decades ago. But she hadn’t understood what she would be walking into when she went there.

Everything, literally everything, was decorated with what seemed to be the Universal Human Symbol for aliens: a skinny creature with big heads dominated by gigantic eyes. The main road in the town was festooned with these representations, as well as those of alien space ships. The flat, saucer-shaped designed didn’t resemble any ship Astra had ever seen, but she supposed there was something to be said for the simplicity of its design.

She arrived at the address of the person giving away the refrigerator. It sat on the porch of the low-slung ranch house set a few blocks off of the main street. An old man with brown skin and a beer belly was sitting in the wooden porch swing. He regarded her with a look she didn’t like.

The refrigerator looked dilapidated and seemed to be covered with fake wood paneling. It would match absolutely nothing on the inside of the trailer that she was rebuilding from the inside out. But, like the trailer, it would be hers. “Is that the refrigerator you’re getting rid of?”

He nodded.

She picked it up. The sides were sticky. She didn’t want to look at the condition of the inside. “And it works?”

“Yep.”

“How come you’re giving it away, then?”

He shrugged. “Got no use for it.”

She picked it up and put it in the back of her truck. Normally, an exchange of currency would happen at this point, but since this was one man’s garbage, and she was taking it off his hands, she simply gave him a nod of thanks, and then drove away.

She came to what they called the “downtown” of Roswell, which as she understood it, was where most towns seemed to keep their attractions, eateries, houses of drink and so forth. The street lamps here had the same bulbous slanted “alien” eyes as everything else.She parked the truck and wandered a little.Every juice bar and coffee shop and gift shop and had the same alien statues outside their doors, some painted in bright colors. 

She wandered into a shop called “Third Rock from the Sun.”It seemed to contain books and curios, mostly.She wandered up to the front, where a variety of shirts with their “alien” mascot sat folded in rows. The shopkeeper, a woman in a flowing shirt printed with the type of geometric patterns that seemed common to this part of the world, smiled at her. She wore a straw hat with an alien pin on it.

“Can I get you anything?”

Astra shook her head.“I’m just looking.”

The woman gave her a jovial smile. “Just let me know if you change your mind.”

After a moment of inspecting the cups and other knick knacks of indeterminate usage, Astra asked her, “What planet is he from?”

“Who?”

“Your alien. I see him everywhere. But what planet is he from?”

The woman chuckled. “Well, there’s lots of theories, but nobody knows. Why, think you know him?”

Astra smirked. “Yes. He owes me fifty dollars.”

The woman chortled at this. 

But Astra was curious now. “Do you believe the story? Aliens landed here?”

“Hell if I know!” the woman said cheerfully. “I mean, aliens are real, for sure. You’ve got Superman, right? So why not here?”

Astra squinted at her.“Superman?”

The woman looked at her in utter amazement. “Superman? Earth’s defender and all that? Planet Krypton? Truth, justice and the American way?”

Astra stared blankly at her.

“Honey, have you been living under a rock?”She pulled out a newspaper and showed her a picture on the front.A handsome young man in a blue pressure suit and a red cape was suspended in mid-air, holding an entire bus aloft in his hands.

On his chest, unmistakable in even this poor quality photo, was the crest of the House of El.

“Now you recognize him, right?”

Astra nodded numbly. “Yes, I do. Thank you.”

And then, in a state of near shock, her fingers suddenly cold and trembling, she walked out the front door and back to her truck, barely even absorbing her surroundings.

She sat and sobbed in the front seat for several minutes. She had had little contact with that side of the family, but her mental math told her it had to be Kal.He wouldn’t remember her, of course, as he’d only been a baby when she’d been shipped off to prison. But still, there was a piece of Krypton, here, alive, out in the open.

And it seemed that he’d been gifted with the powers that everyone claimed the yellow sun imparted. He had, and for some reason, she hadn’t. Would he even acknowledge her if they met? Would he even believe she was Kryptonian? Why, after all, hadn’t she gotten those same powers?

She’d been given a refrigerator and a mystery.

She didn’t know how to feel about it.

 

 

*******

 

 

“It looks pretty good, Angie,” Walt said, looking at the beat-up trailer.She’d patched the holes in the sides, redone the insulation, and made the inside functional if not attractive.

“I would like to find a proper place to park it.I have been living on your kindness for longer than I should have.”

Clementine patted her on the back. “Well, you haven’t been any trouble. But I know how you are, so I’ll just tell you, the National Parks’ll let you park your trailer for fifteen dollars a night, which ain’t so bad. There aren’t any electric hookups, mind you, so you’ll probably want to get a solar panel for the top and whatnot, but it’s cheap.And there’s a few of ‘em not so far from here.”

So after Clementine showed her on a map, Astra loaded her planting crates into the back of her truck.She had accumulated nearly twenty wooden boxes by this time, all with different things growing in them, yielding fruit as well as vegetables.

“So, I don’t know if you’d be interested in meeting a fella once you get yourself settled,” Clem began.

But Astra cut her off. “The only man I’d be interested in meeting is Superman. If you don’t know him, I think I’ll pass.”

Clementine hooted. “Well, it’s good to have high standards! But you let me know if you ever change your mind. Walt’s got a nephew who just broke up with his girlfriend, he’s a real good guy.”

“I’m sure he is. I’ll let you know.” 

 

 

********

 

 

Astra settled into a campsite at the park campground Clem had suggested. She began selling her produce by the roadside on the highway on her days off.She was surprised at how the novelty of it attracted travelers.Often she went home with nothing left in her truck and a wad of cash in her pocket.

Clementine and Walt kept trying to get her to come to their home for dinner. Astra kept declining.It was very hard to be around humans and having to lie all the time about who she was, where she was from, why she sometimes seemed strange to them. She didn’t want to put herself in that position more often than necessary.

She kept growing, kept expanding her box farm.For a while, she managed to push Superman out of her mind. What good could come of it if she did find him? She had a quiet life where no interplanetary law enforcement was likely to find her. She was growing plants, which she had never imagined she would do.Eventually, she quit Walt and Clem’s shop to grow and sell full time. 

It was isolated. It was lonely. It was the best she could imagine doing.


End file.
